BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcasts
Series of talks by Sir David Attenborough on the natural histories of creatures and plants from around the world.
Producer: Julian Hector.
Series 1 first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009. Series 2 first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011.
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH'S LIFE STORIES: SERIES 1 - 4. GIANT BIRDS (320kbs-m4a/23mb/10mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 28th April 2019
Madagascar, off the eastern coast of Africa, is the largest continental island in the world. It is also the place where the largest egg known to have existed was laid, and the bird that laid it was also a giant.
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH'S LIFE STORIES: SERIES 1 - 5. SONGSTERS (320kbs-m4a/23mb/10mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 5th May 2019
People are not the only species who sing. Many birds do and even another ape. What messages are conveyed in the syllables, melodies and repeated phrases, and who is listening?
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH'S LIFE STORIES: SERIES 1 - 6. BOWERBIRDS (320kbs-m4a/22mb/9mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 12th May 2019
One of the most extraordinary structures in the animal world is constructed by a Bower Bird. Sir David tells the life story of the Vogelkopf Bower Bird, the one that raises the bar higher than the rest.
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH'S LIFE STORIES: SERIES 1 - 8. ARCHAEOPTERYX (320kbs-m4a/22mb/10mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 30th June 2019
Sir David recounts the remarkable story of a feather, like any other feather from a bird - only it was 150 million years old, and the animal that lost it lived when birds had not yet evolved.
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH'S LIFE STORIES: SERIES 1 - 10. BIRDS OF PARADISE (320kbs-m4a/22mb/9mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 28th July 2019
Sir David Attenborough talks about the Birds of Paradise, a group of birds which evolved in the relative safety of New Guinea, allowing them to acquire adornments and feathered decorations so resplendent that they fooled the early explorers who discovered them.
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH'S LIFE STORIES: SERIES 1 - 14. THE DODO (320kbs-m4a/21mb/9mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 25th August 2019
The Dodo is the caricature of extinction. This turkey-sized flightless pigeon lived on a remote island and was slaughtered by seafarers for its meat. The same fate has met other flightless species. Can we learn this lesson from history?
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH'S LIFE STORIES: SERIES 1 - 16. BIRD'S NEST SOUP (320kbs-m4a/22mb/9mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 8th September 2019
Filming the birds that make the nests of saliva so prized by Chinese gourmet chefs in the total darkness of a Borneo cave proved difficult, until a conical mound of bat guano provided a natural platform.
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH'S LIFE STORIES: SERIES 2 - 2. KIWI (320kbs-m4a/22mb/10mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 8th December 2019
New Zealand had several species of flightless bird living across the islands, all of which are now extinct, bar one. The Kiwi has become one of those species iconic of the country, like the Koala to Australia, the Giraffe to Africa and the Alpaca to South America. Historically, New Zealand didn't have ground predators such as wild cats and stoats - which allowed birds to exploit living on the ground. Being flightless in New Zealand was a good way to be a bird.
Having filmed Kiwis, Sir David Attenborough muses on the niche the Kiwi occupies on the ground. He argues the Kiwi behaves more like a mammal than a bird, but what mammal do you think, in Attenborough's view, the Kiwi most resembles?
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH'S LIFE STORIES: SERIES 2 - 7. WALLACE (320kbs-m4a/23mb/10mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 22nd March 2020
It was the great travel books written in the 19th century by Alfred Russell Wallace that inspired Sir David Attenborough himself to achieve great things in the realm of natural history.
But Attenborough tells us that Wallace was more than just a great travel writer. His power of meticulous observation and recording as he explored many parts of the world were in the highest league imaginable, even for Victorian standards - and his power of analysis very much akin with Darwin, his great contemporary.
Wallace independently came up with a theory of evolution that was in parallel to Darwin's thinking - two field naturalists breaking huge conventions of the time and coming up with the single most important theory in Biology. How did they resolve the conflict between themselves?
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH'S LIFE STORIES: SERIES 2 - 8. HUMMERS (320kbs-m4a/23mb/10mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 5th April 2020
Hummingbirds are given spectacular names motivated by their striking colours, patterns and shimmering metallic iridescence; their names are beautiful as are the birds.
David Attenborough has filmed them on several occasions and is fascinated by their agility and flying skills to drink nectar from flowers inaccessible to any other animal. And propelled by this rocket fuel of nature they are capable of flying great distances and living life in the fast lane. Enchanting in this story is how moved David Attenborough is when recalling a story of their conservation; a rare piece of good news he comments.
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH'S LIFE STORIES: SERIES 2 - 14. CUCKOO (320kbs-m4a/22mb/10mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 20th January 2019
The Cuckoo is one of the iconic brood parasites of the world - the bird that cons another species into taking its egg as its own and rears the chick to fledging. In the single frame of the Cuckoo you have a long distance migrant, travelling from Africa to breeding grounds in the temperate north, and back again. The Cuckoo does not raise its own chick and across a range of Cuckoo individuals, they parasitise several species of bird - all much smaller than they are. David Attenborough explores the world of the Cuckoo and not only marvels at their natural history but tells the story of how a wildlife cameraman resolved a scientific mystery - and how the Cuckoo itself harbours yet more secrets to science and natural history.
